One particularly distressing abuse to the world ecosystem is the corruption being wrought upon the fresh water system of the Earth by the collection and intensification of nutrients, particularly nitrogen, phosphorus, other organics (hereafter referred to as BOD), suspended solids and organic toxins, through storm water runoff from municipal, transportation, agricultural, commercial and the like operations.
Modern agricultural practices have detrimentally effected the ecological balance of traditional farming. The efficiency of agriculture has changed, with modern fertilization and crop protection application techniques concentrating larger amounts of nutrients, BOD, toxins and the like under conditions which improve farming and are generally non-interactive with the adjacent surrounding environment, but which are vulnerable to periodic displacement and runoff with surface and ground water movement during rainfall and the like. Thus, it is a common occurrence during and after significant snow or rainfall that nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus, BOD and the like that may have been applied or have been concentrated in orchards, fields or the like, or may be contained in waste excrement at animal farms such as dairy and cattle farms or the like, are carried by the movement of storm water runoff to collect in areas where such pollutants are particularly susceptible to entry into the local surface waters and fresh water aquifer and thus become a threat to the fresh water supply.
Modern highway systems, municipalities, industry and the like, generally purposefully provide for the collection and movement of rainwater runoff from an immediate area of human inconvenience, to an area where human inconvenience is less immediate. Generally such systems make no provision for treatment of the runoff and direct the flow thereof to low lying areas, streams or rivers which may be particularly susceptible to entry of the runoff into the local surface waters and fresh water aquifer and thus the pollution thereof by nutrients, BOD, toxins and other pollutants which are generally carried with the runoff.
Many waste water treatment facilities and the like are susceptible to the effects of intense rain storms and it is not unusual that concentrations of nutrients, BOD and the like are carried with storm runoff from such facilities to adjacent low lying areas which are particularly vulnerable to polluting local surface waters and fresh water aquifers.
The problem of fresh water pollution by nutrients and BOD content may be exacerbated by an accompanying concentration of toxic materials. Concentrations of toxic materials, which may have been used as insecticides or herbicides, including heavy metals and the like, may be typically part of the storm water runoff and end up being carried along with nutrients, BOD and the like to the surface waters and fresh water aquifer, thus spreading the pollutants through the environment and further de-stabilizing the local ecosystem.
Various solutions which have been proposed to solve the ecological problem posed by storm water runoff, but have been judged to be incomplete or so specialized that they only serve to change or postpone the problem.
For example, in the animal farming industry, it has been proposed that complex systems be installed to provide manageable manure slurries and that systems be installed by the farmer to enable spraying the manure slurry on differing land areas in a rotating manner to reduce the impact of concentration. It has also been proposed to isolate manure in depositories secure from rain water run-off until the decaying process has produced a concentrated desirable humus which then can be commercially sold or otherwise distributed to non-impacted localities. Both of these proposals present odor problems, require constant manpower to accomplish, do not significantly resolve the migration problem of un-stabilized phosphorus, nitrogen and BOD and have not enjoyed significant success.
Similarly, it has been proposed to construct expensive holding tanks which collect storm water runoff from highways, municipalities and the like and thereafter direct such to traditional waste treatment plants along with raw sewage and the like. Such systems are prohibitively expensive and except in isolated circumstances have generally not been found to be economically feasible.
The present invention addressees the problems associated with handling storm water runoff by providing a means to resolve ecological problems associated with the migration of nutrients, BOD and the like, through the efficient bioconversion of polluting materials at or adjacent to the offending site, into stable, economically and/or ecologically beneficial materials.
Thus, it is an object of the invention to provide an ecologically suitable means for managing storm water runoff.
It is another object to provide an improved process for the biological transformation of nutrients, BOD, toxins or other waste materials, from storm water runoff, into economically suitable materials.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a process to create a biologically active, ecologically stable, humus material through the bioconversion of nutrients and BOD from storm water runoff.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a process to create a biologically active, and/or a nutrient-rich, organic soil from storm water runoff.
These and other objects will be apparent from the following description of the invention.